


_Class Act

by glenarvon



Series: _Brilliancy [13]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Game)
Genre: Bank Robbery, Canon-Typical Violence, Car Chases, Flashback Humour, Gen, Guns, Hacking, Social engineering, Technobabble, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-17 17:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3537464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glenarvon/pseuds/glenarvon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remember Kinderhook?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Revised on 18/March/2015.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a _real_ Kinderhook in Illinois. _This_ Kinderhook is closer to Chicago, just beyond Pawnee.
> 
> The game kind of contradicts itself about Jordi. It clearly implied Aiden met Jordi only after Lena's death. At the same time, from Aiden's audio logs I always got the impression they had known each other a lot longer than that.
> 
> Multitasking is a fucking pain to write. I'm not doing so great with writing Jordi. Bad technobabble is bad. And there's a very weird Drive quote in this.

[takes place in December 2012]

* * *

Places like Pawnee aspired to be like this. A tightly knit community of well-to-do families, set within dense green forests and lush fields and meadows. Kinderhook had only one main street with a handful of streets branching off for those house nestled within even larger, even better kept gardens. It was close enough for people to commute to Chicago comfortably for work and far enough away so the dangerous bustle of the city didn't reach them. All the dregs were already washed up in Pawnee, where they tended to stay out of convenience and necessity rather than look further for the fortune they had lost.

Snow had come only after Christmas and put a thin blanket over the decorations on every house and every garden, softened what few edges there were in the first place. It muffled every sound and shifted Kinderhook into a place of peaceful timelessness.

_Hooked, Line and Sinker_ was a motel just outside Kinderhook, somewhat shabby, it had had the courtesy to be around a bend and out of sight of the town itself, serving the through-traffic rather than the tourists who preferred to stay in a cosy bed-and-breakfast in Kinderhook itself.

Pearce didn't knock. _Of course_ he didn't knock, even if he didn't have his arms full of rolled up sheets of paper and a bag stuffed full with some more of it, he wouldn't have knocked. He barely bothered to do a double-take either, while Jordi and the woman on the bed rocked into abrupt stillness. The springs of the bed twanged, however.

The woman threw her head around, blond hair flying in a wide circle so she could glare at Pearce.

He kicked the door shut behind him, stomped through the room and put the paper on the table, dropping the bag on the chair beside it before he turned to face the bed.

"Jordi, what the fuck?" he asked.

"Funny you should put it that way," Jordi said, grinning past the woman's flawless tits.

The woman brought her head back around, put the glare on Jordi. "Hey, you didn't say there was gonna be another one."

Jordi shrugged, arching his brows high and badly faked innocence. "He wasn't supposed to be back." He looked back at Pearce. "Didn't you say the town archive was closed?"

"You actually thought that'd slow me down?"

Pearce pulled his cap from his head, brushed some melting snow from it and put it away, then dragged his coat off. He frowned at the woman, then back at Jordi. "What's this?" he asked and another man might have rolled his eyes. "You've been stalking me for two weeks so I help you with this job and that's the teamwork I get?"

Neither Jordi nor his prostitute had time to phrase a reply, because Pearce had ran out of patience by the time he'd finished the question. He crossed to the bed, closed a hand around the woman's arm and dragged her to her feet before she remembered to struggle much, she only yelped in surprise before Pearce set her on her feet and let go.

"Woah, you want to see the goods, you can just ask," Jordi complained, but took his time in tossing the blanket over himself and resettling on the bed with an arm tucked behind his neck.

Pearce gathered the woman's clothes, or at least all the pieces he could spot easily, and shoved them in her hands.

"Relax," he said to Jordi as he ushered the woman to the door. "I see better every time I piss."

He opened the door, shoved her outside and closed the door in her face. After a moment of stunned silence, she started cursing them both loudly as she apparently marched down the hallway.

"Can we get this back on track?" Pearce asked in a tone of voice that didn't invite debate.

He returned to the table and started unrolling the paper, which turned out to be blueprints of the Kinderhook Communal Bank. He put a fake plant on one corner, his gun in another to keep the paper flat as it tried to coil in on itself again. He sorted the blueprints, pushed them around until he could fit both the ground floor and the basement on the table.

Jordi took his time, still undecided if he was annoyed with his comrade-in-arms or if he was willing to take Pearce just as he was, because he didn't have much of an option anyway. Nine years of having the great fortune of being on the same side as Pearce and Jordi had learned a few things. For one, it was a good thing for both of them, because Pearce was the second best marksman Jordi knew, he hit about as hard as an oncoming train and he was exactly as easy to slow down or sway from his chosen course.

In all that time, Jordi had rarely seen him express an emotion other than gruff impatience, broken up only rarely by some acidic imitation of humour. Even so, it had been a bad year all its own. So dragging Pearce out of Chicago should've netted Jordi at least _some_ gratitude. The man was definitely stuck, not a lead on his niece's killer and it was beginning to affect his performance and his drinking habit.

"How do you feel about an old-fashioned heist?" Pearce asked, leaning over the blue-prints. "Don't see any other way inside."

"Not done one of those in a while," Jordi said. He pulled himself up and wrapped a blanket around his hips, trailing it across the floor as he stepped in by Pearce's side, peering over his shoulder. "All the surveillance and silent alarms and time-locks take all the fun out of it."

"I can take care of most of them," Pearce said. "Time-locks are a problem, but they usually only have them on the vault, especially small banks like this."

"I'm not robbing a bank without getting at the vault," Jordi said. "And we need to cover our tracks. We break open just one safety deposit box? Everyone knows what we were after."

"Speaking of which," Pearce said, straightened away and half-turned until he could fix on Jordi. "What _are_ we after?"

"A flash drive, like I told you," Jordi said. "I'm not going to divulge my employers, but…"

_"Our_ employers, just so we're clear."

Jordi wagged his head and took a step back. "You," he stretched the word like chewing gum and put one hand up in a placating gesture, the other hand was holding on to the blanket casually, "won't like it. Why ruin a good thing, right?"

And of course Pearce wasn't capable of letting it go. He narrowed his eyes and said nothing until Jordi gave a long-suffering sigh and retreated back to the bed, set down on the edge. Good thing he didn't feel exposed stark naked, because otherwise this whole thing might have turned a bit uncomfortable. He gave the blanket a little kick with his foot to untangle his legs.

"Story time," Jordi announced with gritty cheerfulness. "There is a project head at Blume, who kind of got the job because he'd been sleeping with the boss and he wasn't quite qualified all the way. So when one of his team decided to walk out of there with a flash drive full of vital data, he didn't really want to tell anyone. Since his recent promotion came with a lovely pay-rise, he didn't have to. Instead, he hired yours truly to retrieve the drive before his wayward team member can sell the information to the highest bidder. You see, we aren't _really_ working for Blume."

"Blume data," Pearce said thoughtfully.

"Oh no no no, you can't keep it," Jordi insisted. "I don't double-cross my clients. Gives you a bad rep in the field and the next thing you know people suddenly think they don't have to pay your asking price anymore. And then I have to barter for long, painful minutes and not shoot the guy in the head. It really kills the mood."

"Who said I wanted to keep it?" Pearce asked back and his face almost _almost_ broke into a smirk. "I'm just going to make a copy."

"I'm serious, Pearce, it leaks, I'm so haunting you for the rest of your miserable little life."

"Come on, you know I'm not going to sell it."

Jordi pulled the corner of his mouth up, exposing a bright white canine. "You'll just abuse the hell out of it. Like no one would know."

"No one will know," Pearce said, but it wasn't very reassuring. He made a vague gesture with one hand, studying Jordi as if for the first time. "Why aren't you dressed yet?"

"I work best without my pants." It was a cheap shot, admittedly, but the best he could do considering his rapidly blackening mood. Just because Pearce seemed deadset on dying a frigid virgin didn't mean everyone else had to share his plight. Come to think of it, sending the girl away was a little ill-considered. Certainly Pearce could do with a bit of professional help.

"That explains a lot," Pearce shrugged, bent to pick up his phone from the pocket of his coat. "Maybe try it with pants on sometime. Things can only improve."

* * *

Kinderhook's idyll was nerve-wrecking in its dullness. It made staking out the bank a pain because after the first two days, locals seemed to take note of them and Pearce called it off after that. There was a chance they'd be taken for tourists, but it wouldn't hold up to the natural suspicions of the townsfolk. It was more likely they'd be taken for criminals staking out the bank and that wasn't going to be a healthy thing to project. 

Not that there was much to see about the bank, anyway. It was a small building, greek-temple style in pale stone with ornate windows hidden behind elaborate metal grills. Massive metal gates closed it off at night and after a brief debate, they discarded the idea of going in that way. They'd be in full view from half the town while they worked. Kinderhook had only a small police presence, but backup from Chicago could be there before they finished.

Seated on the table in Jordi's motel room, Pearce very carefully outlined the game-plan they had worked out before while Jordi sprawled on the bed and seemed to be listening only with one ear, but it was for show only.

"I can hack into the bank's server. Banks are tough, but I already got my inroad, so it shouldn't be a problem. I'm guessing the mark is using some kind of cover identity, which means we'll probably have to work through all the bank's clients. The mark's a former Blume employee, so he'll know how to cover the ctOS angle." He shrugged as he spoke. "Bit of legwork, but easy. Once we narrow it down, I get the company who installed the safety deposit box to send out replacement keys. We'll need to waylay the delivery and make sure nothing comes back to the bank about it. Tricky, but doable."

Jordi rolled over, sat up against the headboard and hacked the edge of a boot into the soft bedding. "Let me pick holes in that one for you. I once had this job where I had to hijack a special delivery and these guys just _never_ stop phoning home. There isn't a red traffic light they don't have to report. We hijack _this_ delivery, why wouldn't they spill immediately?"

"It just has to be a good story," Pearce said. "Look, the guys who drive these trucks, they are just doing their job. No one tells them shit about anything. They get called back for some plausible reason, more than likely, they'll just shrug it off, badmouth their boss and do it."

"Sounds unnecessary complicated to me," Jordi said, arching his brows, but then he shrugged half-heartedly. "Why don't we just kill them and leave them on the side of the road? Sure, the phoning home thing, but they'd still take a while to figure it all out."

"That's the alternative, actually," Pearce said. "It'll shrink our time slot, but it'd work. Keep it in mind if they turn out to be difficult."

"What? None of that _spare them all_ thing you've got going for a few months now? I knew you'd get bored of it eventually."

Pearce frowned at him, pretended to think, but it was fooling no one. He'd already made up his mind ages ago. "I'm not gonna fight you on this. And I know how you work."

"You won't argue?" Jordi with exaggerated disbelief.

"No, I won't. It's not worth it."

Or maybe it was not worth it because something had clicked in Pearce the moment the prospect of vital Blume data had entered the picture. If not for Jordi's unwillingness to actually _share_ that data, he'd have used it as bait right from the start. Should've known Pearce wouldn't be happy working in the dark.

Pearce trying to 'clean up' his act since that unfortunate accident had been a somewhat weird sight to behold. For a time, Jordi had been vaguely worried Pearce would lose it entirely, but he seemed to have reached a point of balance after all. He didn't seem to have lost all his edge, either, so perhaps there was hope for him.

Pearce pointedly changed the topic when he continued, "Next, you march in the front door."

"All by my lonesome?"

"Sort of, I can keep the room under surveillance through their own cameras. I should be able to access them through the bank's system. You just snatch some employee, march them down to the basement, plant some explosives on the vault, raid the safety deposit boxes with the keys, blow the vault — or not, it doesn't have to work, it's just a distraction. You get the drive, a couple of other stuff from other boxes. You leave. I'll pick you up outside and we're gone from Dullsville never to return."

Jordi leaned his head back into the wall, grinned at Pearce. "Nothing can go wrong," he declared in a tone of use usually reserved to pronounce the opposite. He was perfectly fine with either alternative.

"You can hire one or two fixers to back you up in the bank, but it's not necessary. I can jam the silent alarms and I can lock the front doors, so no one leaves while you're downstairs. You'll just have to give them a bit of a scare and they'll not fight back. Try not to kill anyone, because that gets the cops all riled up and I don't want to have to lie low."

Pearce turned to his laptop he had open on the table in front of him. After a moment, he angled the screen towards Jordi.

"There's ctOS surveillance all around the bank, but if you take that route, your face won't be visible unless you look directly at a camera."

"Their loss, really."

"Or you give them your best smile and enjoy the attention," Pearce shrugged.

"Nah, not like they can afford me," Jordi shook his head. "What about the armament?"

"I usually come to you with that sort of thing," Pearce pointed out. "You handle it. I got my hands full already."

"Division of labour, like the conservatives keep preaching," Jordi said, pounced to his feet and snatched his jacket from where it lay draped at the foot of the bed. "Sure, I'll bring the boom. Gotta meet my guy in Chicago. You don't need me here?"

"No. But while you're at it, we could do with a getaway car. Ours have been seen around town already."

"No problem," Jordi said, put his hand to the door, but winked back at Pearce over his shoulder. "Get us something _nice_. Don't wait up, could be late. Remember, don't do something I wouldn't!"

He yanked the door open, made a flourishing gesture, and swept out.

Pearce muttered, "There are things you wouldn't do?"

* * *

The getaway car was a bright red Haikal R with squeaky clean plates and tinted windows for a modicum of privacy. Pearce had parked behind the store and set himself up in the driver's seat. He had one laptop put up against the wheel, another open by his side and his phone set up in the centre stack. 

He was vaguely glad people in Kinderhook had already discovered the wonders of wifi, so he could use their routers to bounce his signal through them. He didn't expect much resistance today, he'd been in and out of their system often enough these past few days, he was fairly sure he hadn't raised any alarms. Some more talented programmer would look at the bank's software after today, probably close all his backdoors and redact the administrator access he'd given himself, but he'd made very sure none of it could be traced past the Kinderhook routers he'd hijacked.

Earlier in the day, Pearce and Jordi had both left the motel at different times and in different directions, regrouped and circled back to Kinderhook. Eventually, some witness would produce a serviceable description of either of them, but ctOS had nothing to identify them by.

"Okay, Jordi," Pearce said. "I'm ready."

_"Just taking a stroll,"_ Jordi said through the earpiece. _"It's kind of a nice day for a heist, if you ask me. Have you seen that Christmas decoration? Almost warms my heart."_

Pearce logged into the bank's cameras and distributed their feeds across his two screens. Late in the day, there was only one customer in the bank, an elderly man taking his sweet time chatting with one of two front desk employees. The manager and two more employees were in their offices. A security guard stood by the door, trying to appear watchful, but obviously not expecting trouble and looking forward to pack up work.

Pearce ran Profiler over them all and skimmed the data as it scrolled down. Some cursory search gave him a bit of background on all of them, sorting them into categories for Jordi.

"Seven people in the bank right now," he said. "One customer, four employees, the manager and a security guard. Guard's left of the door, he's half asleep on his feet and he's recently let his gym membership run out."

_"He'll come to regret that decision,"_ Jordi said cheerfully. _"Maybe we'll help him turn his life around. We are doing a public service, come to think of it. All those people! Think of the excitement! I mean, have you seen this place?"_

"Let me guess, almost warms your heart?" Pearce asked as he clicked his way through the others.

_"Yeah, you know, if I had one?"_

"That's what I was thinking," Pearce agreed. "Old man's leaving, I don't know where you are exactly, but maybe avoid looking right at him and don't make eye contact, he'll remember you."

_"Outside a little blue house. Ah, I see him, he's heading the other way, no problem. Any tips for inside?"_

"Take the dark-haired woman on the right," Pearce said. "Her name's Christina, she'll do what you tell her."

_"You just know that? Like magic."_

"Yeah, it's one of those things you wanted me on this job for," Pearce said. "She's been posting online in a support forum for domestic abuse victims. Dominant males frighten her. She won't fight back. _Magic._ "

_"You're wasted as a good guy."_

The bank had one camera monitoring the front door and the sidewalk a few yards in either direction. A young woman came around the corner and hurried into the bank.

"Okay, the woman," Pearce said. "… wait… oh, fun. She works at the motel."

_"God, this place is tiny,"_ Jordi groaned. _"Do you think they have an inbreeding problem?"_

"Helps with the Christmas shopping," Pearce deadpanned. "Just, I don't know, get them to lie on the floor with their faces down."

_"You don't have to talk me through it. Let me roll and it'll be fine."_

Jordi walked inside the bank, going at a leisurely stride to give Pearce some time to map the place ahead of him and give any other useful information. The automatic doors slid closed behind him. He was turned so the security guard couldn't see his face and the other employees hadn't paid him much attention yet.

He took one more step and stopped when his phone buzzed.

"What?" Pearce demanded. He reached for his own phone while he watched Jordi pull his out of the pocket.

_"Oh,"_ Jordi said again. Coming from Jordi this type of worried sound couldn't be a good sign. In fact, it probably foretold the apocalypse. Quickly, Pearce reached for his own phone, accessed the backdoor he'd installed in Jordi's phone a few months ago and took a look at the call.

"Why is Blume calling you?"

_"Are you in my phone?"_

When Pearce took over the call, Jordi's phone stopped buzzing. _"Was that you?"_ he asked and sounded displeased enough. There was a moment of silence and then Jordi said, _"I won't let you hear the end of it."_

Pearce said, "I'll handle it, you do your thing."

_"Just so you know,"_ Jordi said. _"Those videos belong to a client."_

"I'm sure I haven't seen them," Pearce assured him. He muted his mic and finally picked up the call. "Yeah?"

He ran a trace on the call, but didn't expect to get much of a useful result. The trace hit a solid wall and nothing more useful than 'Blume HQ' came out of it. A simple internet search, however, told him the number belonged to a Blume employee, head of a systems integration team. Jordi's client, no doubt.

_"Mr…. uh… Chin?"_

"Yeah."

Pearce kept an eye on Jordi through the cameras. The fixer walked inside the bank, took another moment to orient himself and wait for Pearce's directions. The automatic door slid closed behind him.

_"Uh, am I speaking with Mr. Chin?"_

"Yeah."

_"I, uh… uh…?"_

"Got a sore throat. Which part of 'don't call me, I'll call you' have you failed to understand?"

He switched to Jordi and said, "The manager's heading for the restroom and the security guard's giving you the evil eye. Stop posing and get moving."

Two men entered the bank right behind Jordi, but they gave him some space inside. One headed for the other employee behind the counter, the other hung back. A suspicious frown appeared on Pearce's face. They kept their faces out of sight of all cameras, Profiler reported an insufficient visibility error on both of them.

Pearce switched back to the Blume employee. "Time's a valuable commodity, mine especially, so talk fast."

_"Well, Mr. Chin, something happened and I need to call off the job."_

In the bank, Jordi stepped in close behind the young woman at Christina's counter. Delicately, he put a hand to her shoulder, pulled her back and out of the way. In a smoothly coordinated series of movement, Jordi drew a ski-mask over his head and pistol from the inside of his jacket. The young woman had stumbled in his grip, too stunned to do much else and before she had time to draw breath for a complaint, Jordi had the pistol aimed at her forehead. At the same time, he'd taken a silenced SMG from the bag around his shoulder and held it toward Christina.

Pearce sealed the bank's door and after a short glance at the clock, let the metal grills drop outside the door and the windows. They'd be closing for business in a few minutes anyway, no one would notice.

"You can't call off the job," Pearce told Jordi's client. "What happened? Cold feet, don't worry, I got you covered."

_"My boss, uh, found out data was stolen. And she's a, well… uh, short version: She knows what's going on and I think she's figured out who it was."_

Blume was in on it, then. All their fingers in the game. "We'll talk about this," Pearce told Jordi's client and hung up. He didn't have time to deal with him. If Blume was already on the trail these two men… and yes, Profiler managed to scan the face of one of the men and came up with a record so clean, Pearce could tell at a glance it was fake.

"Security guard," Pearce told Jordi. "Five o'clock."

Jordi whipped around, stepped close to the security guard and smacked him upside the chin with the pistol. The man reeled back, stumbled over his own feet and fell like a sack. Jordi was on him immediately, wrestled a taser from him and unceremoniously pushed it into the man's soft side. The guard jerked and twitched, then went limp.

Jordi took a step back from the two women and drew a slow circle, marking the people with both guns. The Blume men raised their hands, just like the women, but the moment Jordi turned away from them, the Blume man by the door put one hand back down and fumbled in his pocket.

Pearce zoomed the camera in, but couldn't make out what he was doing. It didn't seem to be a weapon, though. More likely, he was groping for his phone, hoping to call for backup. Blume had recently started bolstering its ranks with paramilitary types. They were kept to Blume HQ up in Pawnee and out of the public eye, but Blume was too big and too subtly clandestine not to need someone for the dirty work.

Pearce said, "The two men who came in behind you are Blume security."

Jordi turned to them, pointed a gun at each men, eyeing them up and down. He edged backward until he had them all in sight, but when neither attempted anything, he just rounded them up with the rest of the bank's staff. He shoved the pistol at Christina until she got her shaking hands to unlocked the way behind the counters and Jordi went through like a hurricane, his voice keeping up a steady, casual narrative as he rounded up everyone.

He disarmed everyone and stuffed their guns into his bag.

"Wait," Pearce said. "Can you bring me one of the Blume phones?"

Jordi hesitated, but knew better than to ask back while he was within earshot of the hostages. He snatched one of he phones up with a quick grin for the slightly baffled man.

_"Everyone,"_ Jordi said as he stood away from everyone. A head taller than her, he slung an arm around Christina's neck so the pistol rested on her sternum. Even through the video, Christina looked brittle and small. Pearce hoped he hadn't misjudged her, if she broke into hysterics, she'd be useless. Nevertheless, the physical contact was a good intimidation move.

_"Let's play a little game. It's called 'whoever moves first, dies first'. It's really fun, especially for me. I'll know if you try to cheat. I'm like God, omniscient."_

Pearce watched Jordi on the screen, considering. If Blume already knew the whole story, it actually made sense to call off the heist before it got too hot for either of them.

On the other hand, there was still a flash drive of important Blume data in a safety deposit box in that bank. Pearce couldn't guess what it was, at this point, whether he could even make any use of it, but could he afford to just let it slip through his fingers? The Profiler breach, the one he'd worked out with Damien was a _massive_ asset in his hunt, not to mention it helped to pay for everything. If something on that drive gave him _more_ access… and ctOS saw so much in this city. Perhaps it had seen the shooter, perhaps it knew where he could be found.

"Speed it up," Pearce told Jordi. "Forget about the vault, just get the drive."

_"Why the change of plan?"_ he asked as he walked Christina down a wide hallway to an elaborate metal door. _"Hey, I'm perfectly fine with aborting this entire thing if it fubars. Preferably_ before _it does so."_

"No, keep going. Have a little faith, I know what I'm doing," Pearce said. "You're like a kid in a candy shop anyway."

_"I_ was _before you went all concerned on me,"_ Jordi muttered while he briefly released Christina so she could unlock the door. _"What's going on out there? Are my hostages behaving?"_

Pearce picked up the cellphone signals from both Blume personnel, but he couldn't get access this quickly. He put a simple password cracker to task, but he didn't think he had time to let it run its course. Most of the other people in the bank stayed put, but Blume men sat back up after a long glance to where Jordi had gone. They said something to each other, nodded. One of them pulled his phone out, tapped something on it. The other one, without a phone, he turned slowly on his heels until he spotted one of the camera and looked directly at it.

"Don't worry," Pearce said. "Just don't waste any time."

Pearce's computers both made the same error sound simultaneously.

"Shit," Pearce muttered.

_"Was that a 'shit, things are going so well I'm getting a boner'? Or was that a 'shit is going to hit the fan like a landslide'?"_

Pearce wasn't paying attention. Two laptops and a smartphone had always been cutting it tight in terms of computing power, but it would've been more than sufficient to breach the bank's network. It was not _nearly_ sufficient to withstand a concerted attack backed by whatever Blume had under their belt. One by one, he lost the signal from the bank's cameras until only the one remained, with the Blume man staring at him through the lens as if he could see him try and fail to keep them out.

_"Hey, I'm talking to you,"_ Jordi hissed.

Pearce cursed under his breath. He suppressed the display of the error messages. Setup a statusbar at the upper edge of the screen which slowly but steadily filled up as the attacker tried to install a backdoor. He got the installation to cancel, but he couldn't make it stick. He suspected the problem were the hijacked routers, probably Blume already had them set up to allow them access and they left Pearce with only the fairly feeble protection of his own firewall.

From Jordi's end, he heard the sound of gunshots, the thin chattering of the SMG. It sounded like a fight, but Jordi was more than equippd to handle everything. Jordi was good at what he was doing, despite the attitude.

The status bar reported completion and the system turned unresponsive. Pearce could do nothing but watch as the hacker went through his system, but they didn't seem to be interested in taking anything. The CPU spiked, he could hear it, and then the system just overloaded and shut itself down. He beat a fist down on the keyboard in front of him, then reached for his phone before it could be attacked, too. He cut it out of the bank's network brutally and the phone briefly stalled, working through more errors.

For a moment, it looked liked he lost connection to Jordi entirely, but the phone picked back up and reestablished. This one, at least, was temporarily secure from Blume, but Pearce couldn't be sure.

Jordi's voice came on in medias res of what seemed to be a long string of — presumably — colourful expletives. Pearce hadn't known Jordi actually spoke Chinese.

"Shut up and do what I say," Pearce interrupted. "Do you have the drive?"

_"Yes, I have the drive,"_ Jordi snarled. _"I have also just been attacked by an angry mob. Without pitchforks, but no thanks to you. You were supposed to keep them off my back. What are you doing out there, having tea and biscuits?"_

"I lost access to the bank's system," Pearce said. He tossed the now useless laptop to the backseat and started the car. "I locked the bank down, you'll need to find another way out. Find the manager, he'll get you out."

_"The manager didn't make it to the other side."_

"Fuck… alright, he should have a security key for the fire exits. Or ask Christina if you didn't shoot her, too."

There wasn't any more traffic now then there had been all day in Kinderhook, no one had yet figured out that their bank was being robbed and that a shooting had taken place. Jordi's guns were all equipped with suppressors, the guns wouldn't be loud enough to be heard outside, especially to someone who didn't expect to hear gunfire.

Pearce resisted the urge to press the go full throttle. It wasn't far to bank and he didn't need more attention. With Blume to their elbows in it, he was surprised the cops hadn't started swarming the place yet, but everything was silent, not distant sirens as they came closer, no fleet of police cruisers as they closed down the town.

The question was, could it be good that Blume didn't want the police involved?

"Where are you?" Pearce asked, as he stopped the car, but kept the engine running.

_"Upstairs,"_ Jordi was breathing a bit hard, audibly moving fast. _"Heading for a fire escape… oh no you don't."_

Through the earpiece, Pearce heard the sound of scuffle, followed by the low chatter of the SMG. He heard it outside the earpiece, too, if just barely. Pearce drove around the corner, where a narrow alley led behind the bank. As he stopped, a body hit the ground, dark-suited, Pearce guessed it was one of the Blume guys. Glancing up, Pearce saw Jordi swing himself out of the window he'd just broken and onto the fire escape.

Jordi got down easily, jumped the rest of the way and made a run for the car. Pearce leaned over and opened the passenger door, letting the car start to roll. The moment Jordi was in, he hit the gas, leaving a trail of smoke and dark smudges from the tyres behind as he accelerated down the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Revised on**  
>  _19/May/2016_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I somehow managed to spell Jordi as Jodi for large portions of this and didn't really notice, but Jordi transcends such trivial matters anyway.
> 
> So, 14 stories in, I basically pull a signature weapon out of my arse. I love the auto-6, I just _never use_ it in game and I completely forgot it was there. BUT I can pull a decent in-universe explanation out of my arse, too! Just watch me: Aiden's gang background. A semi-automatic red handgun is easily some kind of status symbol, especially because the thing is expensive and packs quite a punch. In terms of character development, it actually makes sense for him to _start out_ using the showier weapon, but abandon it later in favour of silence and efficiency (and holy shit, is that silenced pistol efficient…) On the other hand, I barely mention the names of the weapons anyone is using anyway. But in terms of coolness, the auto-6 is unbeatable in my book.
> 
> The M4 carbine is a real-life gun that doesn't appear in-game. The Wildfire is it's closest approximation (but the M4 has a greater range).

Sludge framed the streets and Pearce's driving was less precise than it would otherwise be. The car was carried further out in the corners, took an additional moment before it steadied itself and he could accelerate more.

"You fucked up," Jordi stated. He leaned forward and pulled the laptop away from under him, threw it to the floor and had no qualms in stepping down on it when he ran out of space to put his feet. He gave the side of Pearce's face a hard stare.

Kinderhook's main street wound in gentle curves out of the town and into an airy forest. They passed a handful of cars, but Pearce didn't let them slow them down. He simply swerved to the other lane and overtook them easily, too fast for the thin trickle of oncoming traffic to be a concern.

"Do you have the drive?" Pearce asked without much inflection.

"Yes, I have the drive," Jordi said. "But I'm not sure you deserve it. Hanging me out to dry like that? Bad style."

"You're Jordi Chin, aren't you?" Pearce said, gaze still fixed on the road. "Two Blume security guys shouldn't give you any trouble."

"Yeah, no, that's not the point," Jordi insisted. He drummed his fingers on the inside of the car door, low, rhythmic thuds beating through the variable humming of the engine, the hiss of the wind and the sound of wet snow being beaten out of the way by the tyres.

"When your client called," Pearce said, visibly forcing himself to remain calm. "Blume already knew something was going down."

Jordi was silent for a thoughtful moment. "So the whole thing was already off by the time it really started?"

"That drive…" Pearce started.

"So _that's_ it. I get it now," Jordi interrupted, a crystalline cheerfulness cutting back into his tone. "You wanted the drive."

"I need whatever's on that thing," Pearce said, glanced at Jordi. "I know the job's shot to hell. I'll compensate you."

Jordi was still drumming with two fingers against the car and he kept going for another full minute. Then he suddenly stopped and resettled himself. He shifted the bag with the guns around between his feet, markedly annoyed by it.

Jordi said, "Now that phone thing you did…"

"Habit," Pearce said, if he was trying to sound apologetic, it wasn't working. "I'm never sure if you're really on my side."

"Yeah, well, fool me once," Jordi growled. He fingered his phone from his pocket and held it in front of him, turned it upside down and let it hang between his fingers as if he contemplated throwing it out the window.

Instead, he merely tossed it in the air, caught it and put it away.

"Blume hacked in and shut me down," Pearce explained.

Jordi only shrugged. "Nevermind," he said. "You just owe me a heist now. Gonna collect on that one, but probably not in Kinderhook. Small town charm doesn't really do it for me. But I got this thing lined up, a nice handful of ice coming into the country…"

Pearce made a low sound in his throat, either a sigh or the beginning of some kind of objections. Before it got any further, however, a phone rang and filled the car with the melody of Dancing Queen, slightly muffled but distinctive enough.

Pearce glanced at Jordi, brows pulled up high while Jordi's face seemed oddly lax, still focussed away from Pearce. He lifted a schoolmasterly finger toward him and said, " _That_ is _certainly_ very embarrassing _._ Something you didn't tell me, Pearce?"

But the line already began to falter towards the end when the sudden realisation crashed around them both.

"The Blume phone," they said almost at the same time.

Jordi pulled himself straight in his seat, leaned down and fished in the bag for the phone, pulled it free before Pearce had even finished saying, "Take the battery out."

Jordi was making short work of the phone. "Would you look at that," he said, reading the display before he flipped it over in his hand. "Thanks ' _Bae'_ for calling to warn us."

He pulled open and removed the battery and SIM card. Dancing Queen came to an abrupt, though welcome end.

"They know where we are," Jordi stated casually, threw the pieces of the phone back into the bag.

"They know where we are," Pearce confirmed in the same tone.

He stepped on the gas, despite the risk on the slippery road and the red car shot down the nearly empty road that stretched on in front of them as they left Kinderhook further and further behind. Jordi fixed on the mirror on his side, nudged the bag with one foot and briefly eyed the guns there, as if gauging how quickly he could get at them.

The noise of police sirens was still suspiciously absent and with Blume in the picture, switching on a phone was not a good idea. Pearce had a couple of surprising ready on his, but judging by the ease with which they had torn through his laptops, he doubted he'd buy them much time.

"Not to ruin your run or anything," Jordi said. "But do you even know where you're going?"

Pearce didn't answer immediately, he flexed his hands on the wheel in a rare show of agitation, then said, "There's a campground about fifteen miles down the road and through a bit of forest. It's probably empty now."

"Always wanted to have my Bolivian army ending in an abandoned campground outside _Kinderhook,"_ Jordi said. "Thanks for making it happen for me. There's a black helicopter behind us."

Pearce glanced in the rear-view mirror, but he only caught a shadow as the helicopter gained height and followed them at a careful distance.

The road swerved the left in a gentle curve, not harsh enough for Pearce to slow down much. It followed the outline of the forest and up a slight slope, keeping out of sight whatever was beyond.

"Don't be a drama queen," Pearce said. "I can't shake them on a straight road at the ass end of nowhere. We'll have to fight it out. Don't tell me you don't like it."

Jordi chuckled darkly. "I like _my_ odds to be in _my_ favour," he pointed out. "But I'll take my excitement where I get it. By the way, that's really nice stealth tech they've got installed. Do you think there's a market if I steal it?"

"Probably," he answered, but hefted his gaze back on the road as he accelerated some more, though the car was becoming slightly unstable at this speed. "Or you blackmail them for _not_ selling it. Could be more lucrative."

Jordi gave him a long look. "Yes, but that'd be an ongoing hassle, taking up my time while I could already be doing something else. You think too complicated, my friend, that's your problem."

Jordi pulled out the SMG and opened the window. Only then the noise of the helicopter became audible over the roaring of the car and the wet splattering of sludge on the road. Even then it was only a distant humming, hovering over the landscape and keeping pace with them easily.

Jordi screwed off the suppressor, tossed it to the ground, stared at the gun as if he could make transform into a sniper rifle by sheer force of will. The helicopter was out of range for the SMG, even if Pearce slowed down abruptly and before the pilot could adjust, it was unlikely the SMG could do enough damage fast enough.

Jordi put the SMG aside, reached in the bag for the pistol he'd used earlier and took off its suppressor, too. He pocketed a magazine, then finally leaned back in his seat, pulled a leg up against the door.

"Blume black ops," he said. "Who'd have thought. It's disappointing no one tried to recruit me for that operation, seems like they get to play with the nice toys."

"Don't sell yourself short," Pearce remarked and Jordi chuckled.

A second helicopter appeared over the forest on their right, following them. They had a narrow time window before Blume's black ops got more than just the helicopters on them. It was hard to say just how mobilised it would get, but it seemed a safe bet Blume _really_ didn't want to lose grip of the data on the drive in Pearce's pocket.

An unpaved road led into the forest and Pearce took the corner at full speed, the car getting carried to the edge, the left tyres losing contact with the road for a moment, before he steadied it.

The forest wasn't dense enough to hide a bright red car from above, but the sudden change of direction seemed to have put their pursuers on edge. They had barely passed within the trees when the first shot smashed through the trunk and the car jolted under the impact.

Cursing under his breath, Pearce took a long look into the rear-view mirror, judging the distance from the helicopter and his chances of evasion.

"Not good," Jordi commented. He sat up straight again, hefting the SMG, but he was far from dumb enough to waste ammo on a target that was well out of range.

If Blume had anyone with sense, they'd already have mercenaries closing from the other side as well as trying to catch up on them from Kinderhook. At this point, it was safe to assume the cops were being firmly kept out of it, some cover story about the heist, but Blume had time to spin something around that. Not even gossip moved fast in Kinderhook.

The car had less traction on the muddy road and the trees came uncomfortably close every time Pearce took it around a corner, made it fishtail on the verge of completely losing control in the hope of making them harder to hit. More shot punched through the car, on went down through the roof right between them.

Jordi stared at the hole, arched an eyebrow at it. "I'm okay if we start getting somewhere," he said.

"Stop complaining or I'll turn the whole show around," Pearce sneered, teeth clenched. He tore the wheel around and the car performed a 90 degree turn, forced the car off the road and through the trees. Branches scratched past it and the trees came close on either side, but the canopy was thicker here and the few more random shots missed wildly before the shooter seemed to give up.

They didn't have to go far through the trees. They broke through a low, withered fence and Pearce stopped the car abruptly on the edge of the campground he'd been aiming for all along.

It was a wide clearing, gravel and moss on the ground, some mud and sludge to go with it, but while it looked desolate it wasn't quite as abandoned as Pearce had hoped it to be.

A handful of trailers occupied parts of the open space and there was a group of tents set around a campfire. A row of log cabin further to the right of where they'd stopped also seemed occupied. Pearce counted about a dozen people in the time for the car to slither to a final halt.

It was hard to judge just how much time they had. It wasn't just the helicopters they had to worry about. The rest of cavalry was no doubt already on the way, giving them maybe a handful of minutes to set up and plan.

Jordi pulled the SMG and the pistol as he jumped out of the car and strode forward into the open space. He raised the pistol high over his head and fired twice, the bangs echoing over the clearing, thrown back from the surrounding forest.

"Time to ran away screaming!" he yelled and backed it up with another shot. The people drew back from the red car and the two armed men it had delivered into their midst, confusion rapidly replaced by panic under the unrelenting snaps of the gun. There was _some_ screaming, though most people just turned around and made for the trees. A few reacted slower, drew back only a few steps or had the bright idea to take cover behind their trailers or camping furniture.

Pearce stopped by Jordi's side, pulled his auto-6 from the shoulder holster under his coat. The scratched red metal of the gun formed an odd point of brightness in the otherwise drab, murky winter atmosphere of the forest. The stood out there in the open only for a moment, before the first helicopter appeared over the clearing, held itself still in the air and turned to allow the sniper a better shot.

Pearce and Jordi exchanged one glance, than ran in two different directions and the sniper took just long enough to decide on a target that both men had managed to dodge behind cover. Jordi behind a stack of wood and Pearce pressed his back against a trailer. He slipped to the edge and peered around it, just in time to see several cars swerve to a halt on the dirt road and then spill several dark-clothed and well-armed men out into the campground.

Sudden movement caught his eye and he snapped around, gun drawn and cocked, trigger finger already tensing. A young man stared at him from wide eyes, clearly petrified despite the thick branch in his hand. Above the edge of his mask, Pearce gave him a hard stare, he considered repeating Jordi's warning — he considered just shooting the man, too, fewer people to mess things up — but the man drew back before him, lowered and then dropped the branch. Pearce made a sharp gesture with the gun and the man stammered a quick apology, ran out of courage, turned and dashed away.

A shot hit the ground in front of his feet and Pearce jumped back as far as he could, pushed into the trailer and looked up, at the helicopter hovering just above him. Time to move.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the campground, Jordi crouched behind his pile of wood while splinters were shot loose over his head and rained down on him, getting stuck in his hair. He leaned out of cover, assessed the situation and picked his targets, pumped them full of lead, a round from the SMG close enough to puncture even a bullet-proof vest if they were wearing any.

He'd counted three cars, but there could be more on the way and regardless of what else they were doing, the helicopters needed to go. While the damn things were still in play, the only chance of getting away was walking blindly through the woods for miles and keep their fingers crossed.

Just the thought made Jordi pull a face. Not in this suit, baby. He could replace it easily, but that wasn't the point, it was a matter of principle. Besides, the hiss and snarl of bullets close to his head offered an interesting change of pace. Too few people these days had the balls to take him on and while he did enjoy watching them scamper to safety at the mention of his name, he _so_ liked the occasional challenge, too.

He should team up with Pearce more often. The man pretended to be a spoilsport, but he still had a knack for the right kind of trouble.

Jordi hurried along the back of the wood, crouched down and took another shot at an enterprising fixer who had had the bright idea of trying to flank him. He looked over his shoulder, saw Pearce duck out of sight.

"Hey Pearce!" Jordi shouted and Pearce looked up, he had his eyes narrowed in annoyance, clearly visible even at the distance. "Do you know what they say?"

"Know what?"

He leaned over the barrel currently serving as very inadequate cover, aimed, and the auto-6 barked deep and low. Someone gave a wet scream in sudden, gargling pain and then was silent, no doubt bleeding out their life from where the bullets had torn open his throat. That was _another_ way to deal with body armour.

"Takes two to tango!" Jordi grinned brightly. "Always wanted to say that."

Pearce glared at him. "What!?"

Jordi shrugged and leaned a bit further out of cover, pushed himself up until he was ready to leap. He spared a quick glance at the sky, but the two helicopters seemed to have some trouble choreographing themselves over the comparatively small clearing.

He stepped out of cover, SMG and pistol raised high and picking out his targets. In front of him, two trailers formed a narrower stretch of space, enough to give him some protection from the sides and funnel his enemies to him in a near little string, so he could take down one after the other, walking forward.

He kept his eyes on potential cover along the way, just because he was doing this didn't mean he was prepared to do it the stupid way. He had been in the game long enough to have been shot at by any weapon in existence. He'd been shot at by a _longbow_ once, though they had been both a bit high at the time. Never _ever_ accept a contract on a weed dealer. First, they were practically public benefactors and second, he could be indulging in his own product at the time and anyway, have some odd hobbies.

The thing was, neither Pearce's nor his own weapons were going to do much good against the helicopters, but some of _these_ guys, they were equipped with heavier guns. Specifically, he was sure he'd heard a M4 carbine and a 416, either of them would give him a decent shot — literally — at the helicopters. He'd prefer a U100, but he somehow doubted they were taking special orders.

Pearce cursed to himself, but he had the presence of mind to figure out what Jordi wanted him to do. He gave covering fire, took down anyone else Jordi had no chance to see or react to.

"Chopper's coming back around!" Pearce shouted. From the direction of his voice, Pearce was moving around fast, clearly being forced further away from Jordi or expose himself to more gunfire.

One of the men ahead of Jordi seemed to detect a momentary break in the firing as Pearce had to concentrate in some other direction and Jordi's pistol ran out of bullets. The man leaned out of cover, the carbine Jordi had wanted all along at the ready.

Jordi threw himself to the side, made a rather graceless landing on his stomach in the freezing mud. He scrambled back to his feet and took the few more steps he needed to get behind a trailer. A ladder lead up the trailer there and he climbed it quickly. He saw the helicopter, knew he was down to the last few seconds.

He wasn't going to die in a soiled suit, he ran along the top of the trailer, judged the distance and pounced down just behind the man with the Carbine. A shot from the sniper hissed over his head when he jumped, probably even singed some of his hair.

He landed smoothly, though, used the momentum to crush his pistol into the mercenary's neck and when the man went down, Jordi brought the SMG around and shot him in the head from behind. The man slumped on his ruined face.

Jordi snatched the carbine up, turned and made a run for it through a gap between the trailers.

He would have liked to check back with Pearce, but he supposed for as long as there was gunfire _not_ aimed at him, Pearce was still holding up his end of the damage. He would have liked someone to keep the mercenaries off his back while he took aim at the helicopters, too, but it wasn't the first time he had to work with a lousy setup.

Ahead of him, the campground was empty. On his right, he saw the tents and the campfire, but neither offered a particularly good vantage point or anything like decent cover. He made for their abandoned getaway car, darting across the open space hopefully fast enough no one saw him throw himself down behind the car.

He leaned his back into the side of the car, took a few deep breaths to steady himself.

The shooting had moved away from him. Without needing any special directions, Pearce had figured out he was the designated distraction and seemed to be doing all hell to keep attention on him. It'd be bad luck if it turned out to be more than he could handle, but Jordi spared him barely a second thought. By the time Pearce went down, these helicopters better were out of commission.

With his breathing slowed down enough, Jordi rolled back up, moved back on the car and set up the carbine on the hood, leaned down so he could aim at the sky and the still circling helicopters. One seemed to flying a wider circle over the woods, perhaps out of fear one of them was trying to sneak away, but the other was doing a good job of riddling a trailer with holes while Pearce darted past in its shadow.

The carbine wasn't setup for long-range firing, equipped with just iron sights and no decent scope, but helicopter was holding still, assisting its sniper in target acquisition of his own.

"Now," Jordi muttered to himself. "Do I shoot the sniper or the pilot?"

At this range, it was more of a rhetorical question, anyway, but he didn't have much margin for error. The moment he opened fire, the mercenaries would remember he was still there and swarm him, Pearce's best efforts be damned.

Jordi leaned into the gun against the inevitable recoil, drew a breath and held it, waited another moment until the muzzle was perfectly steady in his hands. He pulled the trigger, pushed into the recoil to force as much as of the burst to hit its target.

He was too far away to see the details, but he was fairly sure he hit the sniper and the impact threw him back inside the helicopter.

Jordi realigned the carbine and fired again, aiming roughly for the pilot, but he mostly just tore through the front and underside of the helicopter as the machine tried to gain height as quickly as possible, swerving away over the forest and hopefully never to come back for a second beating.

"One down," he announced to an enraptured audience of one. He took the carbine down and rolled behind the car again, just in time as the first shot bit through the metal of the car. He slipped to the back, settled behind the trunk before he peered around it to assess his situation.

By the circle of tents, Pearce briefly tangled with an attacker, tossed him around and into a tent, which collapsed around him. Pearce whipped around after him, followed up with a shot before he ducked away. Bullets rained into the ground where he'd stood just a moment before. The last Jordi saw of him, Pearce was bunkering down behind a pile of tyres, reloading, but Pearce didn't stay long enough to make himself a target.

Jordi spotted three more mercenaries in hiding around the trailers and while he watched, he heard two shot from the auto-6 and there was no answering fire. Either because everyone had gone into hiding, or because there was no one else left.

Jordi pulled up the carbine, took aim quickly and emptied a round into a mercenary's head peeking up above the rails on the side of a trailer.

He heard bark of the auto-6 and relaxed behind the iron sights, watched with some new-found leisure as Pearce straightened away out of cover and took a step forward. Jordi couldn't see Pearce's target, but the way Pearce held himself, the man must be right in front of him and Pearce put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger in his face.

Wasting no more time on admiring someone else's handy-work, Jordi stood up and put the carbine back on the car. He tracked the second helicopter with his gaze, then leaned in behind the iron sights, waited patiently as it drew closer.

He grinned to himself when he deemed the helicopter within range and opened fire. The burst tore through the front of the helicopter, punched through something crucial and he was _fairly_ certain he'd hit the pilot this time. Either way, the helicopter swerved to the side sharply and as some minor explosion ripped a hole into the hull on the side. Black smoke oozed from the gap. The helicopter gained height, but it was clearly out of control, leaning this way and that before dipping to the right sharply and going down in a tight arch over the trees and out of sight. It crashed through the trees, marked only by the smoke rising over the forest.

"There's more where that came from," Pearce said from Jordi's side. He pushed the mask from his face, still breathing a little hard.

Jordi tilted his head to the side as he stood up."And I'm just getting started," he stroked one hand along the carbine.

Pearce seemed unimpressed. He shrugged. "Do what you want."

He walked around the car, pulled open the passenger door and retrieved the bag originally from below the seat. He zipped it closed and slung it over his shoulder, then met Jordi's gaze again.

"I'm taking one of those dirt bikes and get out of here," he said. "Try not to get killed."

Jordi leaned into the side of the car, watching Pearce from narrowing eyes. "That's how it's gonna be?" he asked, smoothed down the front of his suit, ineffectively brushing at the caked mud. "You still owe me," Jordi added, just in case he was being too subtle.

"No, actually, _you_ need to figure out who spilled to Blume and caused this mess."

"Hm," Jordi made. He picked a splinter of wood from his hair and snipped it aside. "My dear wayward client has a lot to answer for, not to speak of my pay-check. Or yours, for that matter."

Jordi tapped the side of the carbine thoughtfully. It looked like he was giving it a pat. He looked around the campground, the dead strewn around and the burning helicopter crashed in to the woods not far away. Not bad for half an hour of work, even if it was essentially unpaid work. But maybe Pearce was right. Blume had been throwing quite a bit of heat their way and no doubt they were gearing up for more.

Jordi decided he was a little too old for more mud-wrestling. He was keeping the carbine, though, as a memento. Definitely a better choice than hanging on to his suit.

"Yeah, yeah," Jordi said, waved a hand in the air, dismissing some trivial thought or other. "When I find him… do you want in?"

Pearce hesitated and while he still pondered the offer, a tiny drop of blood ran down the side of his face. He raised a hand and brushed it aside, traced it back up to the side of his head. His fingers came away bloody. He stared at it for a moment, than wiped the blood on the side of his trousers.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I'm in."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter has taught me that google is somewhat reluctant to tell you how to torture people. If I ever end as the suspect in a crime and they take a look at my browser history, I'm doomed.
> 
> I suggest you never get on the naughty list of _both_ of them.

Metal scraped on metal as Jordi gave the gun a shove, let it rotate on the table until it skittered unevenly to a halt. He nudged it again and the gun swirled once more. Every-time the little game started again, the man in the centre of the room made a tiny whimpering sound. Jordi suspected it was the kind of sound that started abrading your nerves if you had to listen to it for too long, even if the rest of it all was enjoyable enough. Though, truth be told, he'd had better dates.

As the gun spun, he looked up briefly, arched his brows as he looked the man over. Jordi was a little hard-pressed to figure out what he was whimpering about so badly. Jordi couldn't detect any lasting damage done when Pearce had abducted him, no broken bones from the baton, no seared grazing shots, no telltale knuckle marks on his face… the man had apparently not resisted at all. Depending on your world view, that could make him one of the smart ones, of course, but Jordi's opinion on the man's intelligence wasn't too stellar.

The grimace he pulled along with the whimpering wasn't doing anything for what would otherwise have been an attractive face.

The gun slowed down and before it could stop, Jordi put his hand down on it so the muzzle pointed at the man. He flinched in the rickety folding chair Pearce had pushed him down on before.

They were in a dirty basement room, broken boxes and other debris strewn around in the back, casting bizarre shadows across the cracking concrete walls where mould crawled down in the corners.

" _Gene_ Long," Jordi said, drew out the name like chewing gum. "Good name for porn, I hear you've recently been fired by Blume."

Gene lifted his head a little when Jordi started speaking, then flinched even harder when Pearce stepped out of the shadows and walked around him only to stop somewhere behind him, out of easy sight.

Jordi saw Pearce settle a shoulder into the wall and cross his legs at the ankle, pulling out his phone and flicking through it casually.

Pearce said, "Yes, IT doesn't seem to be his thing."

"What do you want?" Gene asked whispered. If anything, the fact that at least they were speaking to him, seemed to give him some strength back.

"You hired me, remember?" Jordi said, feigning surprise. "You still owe me half a pay-check. And my irate friend there, too."

"But I don't have the money! And it doesn't matter anymore, because Blume…"

"Yes," Jordi interrupted gently. "That's the other thing. You see, hiring me and not paying up is _bad._ Really fucking bad. But…" he took his hand from the gun and wriggled it in the air between them. " _Maybe_ I'd have let that slide. Maybe. But almost getting me killed? Ruining one of my best suits? That's very hard not to take personally. And do you know what happens when I take something personally?"

"I didn't do it!" Gene wailed. He rocked forward and his chair complained. "They just _knew_ …!"

"Bullshit," Pearce said. "Next time someone sends you a link to a Kesha sex tape, don't click it. I'd have expected something better from a Blume IT engineer, but I suppose you're out of a job for a reason."

Gene's gaze flicked over Jordi as he turned his head, trying to steal a look at Pearce over his shoulder. When Jordi set the gun spinning again, Gene looked back around, eyes darting back and forth in the room in the hopeless attempt to get them both in sight. It was obvious that he couldn't quite decide who of the two of them frightened him more.

"Because of that little slip," Jordi continued. "We know you've send a mail to your boss where you spilled _everything."_

He frowned, this time in genuine puzzlement. "I just don't get what was going on in that head of yours. All you had to do was sit still for a few more hours. I'd have gotten you your flash-drive, you give me my money, I give himhis money and everyone walks away happy. Well, maybe except for him," he gestured at Pearce. "He doesn't do happy too well."

The man fidgeted, looked down on the tip of his boots or perhaps studying the rough and dirtied floor under him. He forced himself to look back up, tried to catch Jordi's gaze, but did a poor job of not looking at the spinning gun.

"What do you say?" Pearce asked and at the sandpaper sound of his voice, Gene blinked and pulled his shoulders up as if expecting a blow.

"Fingers? Teeth?" Pearce continued conversationally. "Eyes? Ears? Tongue? Where should we start?"

Gene whimpered quietly, wrapped his arms tighter around him and stared at Jordi from wide eyes. Jordi chuckled to himself.

"So many choices," Jordi commented, picked up the gun and tapped it against his chin, making a show of considering the list of options.

"No no no! Wait!" Gene whined. "I can… I can get you the money! I swear I can!"

He snapped his head around when Pearce's boots made a low scratching sound, but Pearce stepped aside easily, coming at Gene from the other side and Gene yelped in shock when Pearce dropped both hands on his shoulders.

Jordi took the gun down, rested both hands on the edge of the table, rocking back and forth a little.

"That's a nice starting offer," Jordi said. "But it's not the money. Never thought I'd hear myself say that, but you see, that backstabbing part… I can't let that get out to the general public. Word gets get out I've gone all soft on some _little shit pissing all over me,"_ he shook his head sadly. "The problems just never end." He leaned forward and gave Gene a toothy grin. "I know it's cliché, but I just can't let you get away with this." He looked up and caught Pearce's gaze. "I'd say we start small. Break a finger."

It took Gene a long moment to process the information through his already panic-addled brain. At any rate, he lacked the physical strength and willpower to get out of Pearce's grip. Pearce yanked up Gene's arm, shifted his hold to a finger and snapped it back sharply. The bone grated and strained and finally broke. Shock seemed to hit Gene first, forced him into a split second of silence before the scream forced itself from his throat.

Gene's body started shaking so hard, when Pearce abruptly let him go, Gene knocked over the chair and landed on his side in a messy heap, holding his hand in the air above him as his screaming subsided to high-pitched wailing.

Pearce turned on his heels, took a step forward and reached delicately for the chair and put it up again. Gene tried to slide back and away from Pearce. He turned around and started to crawl. He didn't get very far, because Pearce stepped forward, gripped him at the collar of his jacket and a shoulder, hauled him p and pushed him down on the chair.

Gene struggled weakly, but didn't try to get away. Shivering, he stared at Pearce from frightened animal eyes, with tears running down his face.

Pearce stepped back, however, leaned into the wall again in much the same position he'd had before. He gave Jordi a hard stare and said, "Your turn. I don't think he needs his kneecaps."

Jordi had the perfect vantage point to watch the way Gene _broke._ His expression changed seemingly in slow motion right in front of him. Gene's eyes grew wide and his nose scrunched up, corners of his mouth quivering.

"What do you _want?"_ Gene sobbed. "I'll do anything! Just say it!"

"Nothing," Pearce said from behind him. "You have nothing to offer."

Jordi tapped the gun on the metal table, making it ring in the empty basement and for just a second, Gene's took great, hiccuping breaths. A glob of snot slowly dripped from his nose and came to rest on his upper lip.

"Don't lie to the poor man," Jordi said. "He's still got _some_ use as a cautionary tale." He frowned. "Of course, not if he gets too disgusting… I was hired to abduct this guy once? He pissed himself and that's _not_ a figure of speech, I'm afraid. Completely ruined the leather seats. But it had a happy ending, because I had to get rid of him anyway, and I sunk him _and_ the car."

He shook his head sadly. "You never get that stink out, but I liked that car."

"Kneecaps, Jordi," Pearce reminded him, sounded both impatient and bored.

"Both of them?" Jordi asked and jumped to his feet. Gene lurched back, but Pearce took a quick step forward and caught the chair before it could topple over.

"I mean I get one finger and you want _both_ kneecaps?"

"It's proportional to how much you talk."

Jordi shrugged and dropped the argument. He stepped forward and because Pearce was still holding the back of the chair, Gene couldn't draw back further. He was still holding the wounded hand out away from him, but he lifted his other arm in a feeble attempt to ward off Jordi, trying to scramble away to the side.

Pearce put a hand to his shoulder, keeping him pinned for Jordi.

Jordi leaned over Gene, made eye contact with him as he pressed the gun to his knee. He flicked the safety off, deliberately and loud enough Gene could hear it and the sobbing stuttered as he had no choice but to stare back at Jordi's face and the lopsided smile on his face when he pulled the trigger.

The echo of the shot beat around the empty room, loud enough to be deafening and with the way Gene was howling, Jordi almost wished it had.

* * *

Pearce stepped out on the driveway, put his head back and breathed deeply. The neighbourhood around him was in silence, the houses on both sides were just as empty as this one, fallen into disrepair and even the gangs seemed absent tonight.

Behind him, Jordi let the garage door drop. In the darkness, Pearce's expression was inscrutable when he glanced back at Jordi and then away again.

"Doesn't it make you sick?" Pearce asked, but his voice was so low, he might as well be talking to himself.

Jordi took a few swaggering steps forward until he was standing right beside Pearce. "No, not really."

"Don't you think it should?"

Jordi arched his brows and gave Pearce a look of sheer scepticism. "Are we having a heart to heart here? Because that's absolutely not something I do."

He waved with his hand, back at the garage, the abandoned house it belonged to and the unconscious man inside they had made an example of.

"I get it," Jordi said. "You want to 'redeem' yourself." He air drew little quotation marks into the air and the word sounded like something dirty from his mouth. "I think you should take a long look at what you're good at before you go on with it, but that's entirely your own loss. If you ask me, which you _did_ just now… here's a piece of my mind. The world," he drew a circle with his hand, then stabbed a hole in it. "Is full of _losers_. And it falls to men like me to make use of it while it lasts, milk as much fun and money out of it before it goes up in shit and flames. That jerk back there? No matter how you look at it, he was asking for it. You don't hire a fixer — and let me tell you, you don't hire a fixer with _my_ going rate — and then try to backstab him and you especially don't do it in such a harebrained way, that's just adding insult to injury."

He took another step forward, turned around until he faced Pearce, narrowed his eyes at him. "And to answer your original question: No, it shouldn't. In fact, I think we made the world just a _tiny_ little bit more fair tonight."

He measured about half an inch between his forefinger and his thumb, then used the hand to dismiss his own account, already bored with it. "Justice for everyone. Case closed."

When Pearce didn't respond, Jordi lifted a hand and for a moment it look like he was about to give Pearce a pat on the back. Instead, he dropped his hand again.

"With that out of the way," he said casually. "I just thought I'd tell you. I've started this new safety measure, where I only bring burner phones to each of our rendezvous. In case you think about getting clever while I'm not looking."

Pearce turned his head, a little more sharply than was normal, but Jordi ignored it and the look that accompanied it. Jordi stepped past him, gave a careless wave over his shoulder. "I'm done here," he said. "You got a paying job for me, get in touch."

He walked to his car, tossed the keys in his head as he walked around it. He got in and drove off to the roaring of the engine, too loud for the neighbourhood and Pearce still heard him when he was two streets away.

Pearce stood perfectly still until the roaring of Jordi's car had faded. Without looking at the house, he walked down the driveway and across the street, where his own car was parked.

He pulled out Gene's phone and dialled.

_"911, what's your emergency?"_

"Send an ambulance to 7751 Peoria Avenue, some guy has been shot and beaten up in the basement."

_"Please…"_

He didn't wait, he only dropped the phone on the street without disconnecting the call. He gave the house a quick glance as he got into his car, but he didn't linger.

He drove off into the night and was gone long before ctOS had been alerted to the call and sent the ambulance on its way. He had one more thing to do, however.

* * *

**To:** Christina Sullivan

 **From:** (blocked)

 **Message:** I'm sorry for what happened in the bank, but I'm even more sorry for what happens to you outside the bank everyday. It isn't my job to tell you how to lead your life, but perhaps the moment of shock helped wake you up. It doesn't have to be like that. There's a link in the attachment where they'll actually help you.

 **Attachment:** J3msPTs3r8.lnk 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Reference:** Although a vague connection Jordi's "milk as much fun and money out of it before it goes up in shit and flames" was inspired by: "Conceive more and subtler ways of getting the better of a sniggering world." Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
> 
>  **Closing Note:** More on Aiden the hypocrit! One very early thing you hear Aiden say in the game is how torture wasn't going to work on Maurice and Aiden's just extremely casual about the possibility of it. It doesn't seem like it's occured to him that _torture_ isn't the morally sound thing to do. AND it's a factor that's present regardless of how the player influences Aiden's behaviour (and personality.)


End file.
